ROME (AP) - Conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi appeared headed for a return to power as Italian premier, with projections on Monday giving his bloc a solid lead in both the house and the Senate. RAI state television projected Berlusconi's bloc taking 164 Senate seats, ahead of 139 for center-left leader Walter Veltroni's Democratic Party and allies. The Senate has 315 seats. In the lower house, projections showed Berlusconi's bloc with a 6 percent lead over Veltroni's. Under Italy's system, premiers must have control of both houses to govern.
The voting Sunday and Monday came amid a widespread sense of national decline and an economic downturn.
Berlusconi, 71, who has been premier twice before, has blamed the outgoing center-left government for the country's troubles. Veltroni, the former mayor of Rome, is almost 20 years younger and has promised deep reform and an ideology-free approach to tackle the country's problems. Berlusconi entered the race as the front-runner, capitalizing on the unpopularity of the outgoing government of Prodi, whose early collapse forced the vote three years ahead of schedule. But Veltroni appeared to have narrowed the gap, according to polls released before a pre-election ban on publishing polls took effect.
Whoever wins will face Italy's perpetual dilemma—improving the economy, the world's seventh largest. It has underperformed the rest of the euro zone for years and the International Monetary Fund forecasts growth of 0.3 percent this year, compared with a 1.4 percent average growth for the 15-country euro area.
Signs of decline are abound, from piles of trash in Naples, to a buffalo mozzarella heath scare that has hurt exports and hit one of the country's culinary treasures, to the faltering sale of the state airline Alitalia. And Italians increasingly blame the governing class—not just one political force or another—for the failure to solve the nation's problems.
The elections decide 945 parliamentary seats, 630 of those in the lower house. Under Italy's much-criticized election law, a party only needs a relative majority in the lower house—even just a 1-vote lead—to win bonus seats securing full control of the chamber.